This capture took many years in assemble. I was interested in night time shooting back in 2017 and 2018, the Hot Creek near Mammoth was a great opportunity. My adult kids and I made a few attempts that summer, eventually landing a good image of Milky Way using my Star-Tracker too. But after June there were many many smokey days, most trips resulting in no captures of the creek area. I really wanted a luminous image, bright enough to see the old Hot Creek. As always, time passed and passed. Finally in January 2021, there was a warm spell in the weather, and I remembered my attempts to shoot a night time image in this spot. The winter the skies in Mammoth are crystal clear day and night. I chose an evening a few days after the new moon where foreground had some light, avoiding problems with noise in the capture, and allowing the natural shadows to shine. Like most night time captures, this image was stitched together using at least two images from the same location, years apart in this case! I am thinking this is a good image matching my expectations.
